It’s election day again here in the U.S. of A.! And in northern Colorado, we also have the opportunity to vote on secession from Colorado. Crazy? We haz it! It’s probably best that we remain attached to Colorado so that it can help us dilute the crazy. (The pro-secesh campaign signs say something like, “vote yes–send a message.” I considered voting yes, because the message would be, “we’re idiots up here!” but I thought the better of it in the end.)
Long story short: the more conservative and agricultural parts of Colorado feel like they’re a “disenfranchised minority” because Colorado is an urban state and more people live in Front Range cities and towns in or proximate to Denver than live in small-town northern and eastern Colorado, and because sophisticated urbanites tend to favor things like civil unions and responsible gun safety legislation. So the secessionists are half-right: they’re a “minority” of voters, but they’re certainly not “disenfranchised.” Here in Colorado, where we don’t labor under that bull$hit Connecticut Compromise, it’s people and not acres of land that get to vote, and they’re sore about that.
Well, friends, you know what to do. I don’t even need to say it. Maybe like me you vote by mail, or maybe you still like the ceremony of queueing up and getting a sticker from the senior citizen volunteers and poll watchers who superintend election days in the U.S. In any case, just do it!
Historiann 
Yes, H, it’s like that in Virginia too. Of course it’s particularly irksome to hear Virginians complaining about this issue, since Virginia is one of the most egregiously gerrymandered states. This seems to be part of the Fox/Tea party offensive for taking over everything through undemocratic means using democratic seeming slogans. (Ie, convince people who are in reality over-represented or properly represented that they are having their representation stolen by the Other – urban liberals – so they are more willing to grab power by any means necessary.) They only like democracy when it suits them!
(I should add as an aside that I do feel some sympathy for ‘traditional’ Virginians – I think places that have seen explosive growth that has rapidly changed the make up and feel of a state are left with a sensation of loss and nostalgia. I get it. It can be hard. I watched the beautiful farm land of my youth eaten up by housing developments and McMansions.)
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It seems like the whole tea party name tries to identify with folks who really didn’t have representation (they didn’t get to vote for a Member of Parliament, right?) and were taxed by Parliament.
But those mostly white folks aren’t REALLY disenfranchised, and most voter fraud in the US historically has to do with preventing some folks (African Americans and other ethnic minorities, and women) from voting.
Now I’m trying to figure out if there’s a local election at all. I haven’t heard anything, nor seen any signs up.
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Marylanders, me and the beautiful woman (Taj Mahal) included, live next to the Virginians and until a decade ago we believed they are from Mars. My oldest once said: “you are not going to a hospital in Virginia.” Now, Northern Virginia is as Blue as it gets. The downstaters are still fighting the “war between the states.” We call it the Civil War.
We all have crazies. Actually, the country is governed by crazies. What the hell, the world is run by crazies. My academic department is controlled by crazies.
Crazies’R’Us!
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Do not surrender to despair. Remember: that’s what the Republicans are counting on.
Drag yourself to the polls, even when it seems hopeless.
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It’s Election Day in my beautiful city, and I am anxious as hell. In 7 years, this city has come around so much you wouldn’t recognize it. In 2011, they elected a City Council so progressive (for Midwest standards) that it would put cities like Portland to shame. There has been a lot of backlash and money poured in from outside, Tea-party like organizations, to reverse this. I hope the residents of this city keep things moving forward.
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Oh, we left-coasters have a rural secessionist movement of our own. It would just be hard to get on any state ballot because it spans two states:
http://www.jeffersondeclaration.net
(NB: All pages load verrry slowly!)
The “I’ve had it!” page even invokes Historiann’s Colorado loonies!
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cf. the article in the NYT yesterday about the Koke Bros. descent on Coralville, Iowa.
My vote is in, although we have only the mildest of municipal offices and questions, including the usual run of uncontested contests, in which I refuse to vote. We have a student running for town council in one district and I was going to give her my vote, until I realized, whoops, wrong district. So I went with my usual and wrote in a couple of retired colleagues for arcane offices. Do we have the last hogreeve in the republic? Plus voted against the retention of a supreme court justice, mostly for contrarianism and spite. Then we also had a department curricular committee ballot today. I voted yes for everything, even stuff written in incomprehensible educratia. We need a campus-wide hogreeve, is what we need!
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The irony is that the protests against unrestrained oil and gas drilling, a key issue with the 51st staters, sprung from Pottersville 20 years ago. The city went to court to fight lax setbacks and regulations and the primacy of the state oil and gas drilling commission was upheld. Since that time the city fathers have changed their tunes and squealed like stuck pigs when the setbacks for drilling platforms was increased from 350 to 500 feet (among other perfectly reasonable restrictions). Given that the movement is going nowhere without Pottersville and that Pottersville’s citizens have shown a distinct distaste for drilling platforms in their backyards, the dishonesty of the campaign is as unsurprising as it is galling. There is no end to complaints about the gays and magazine limits and alternative energy requirements, but nary a peep about gaining two sentate and one house seat at the expense of turning a very liveable city into a sarifice zone.
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Hogreeves? Srsly? That’s pretty quaint!
For those of you without access to the Oxford English Dictionary Online: “Chiefly in New England and south-eastern Canada: a person appointed to impound stray pigs, and to prevent or assess any damage caused by them.”
The irony is that there are probably a lot of states and towns (esp. in the South?) who could use full-time hogreeves, what with the feral pig population & the destruction it causes.
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p.s. the last citation for hog reeve (used to be all one word, then hyphenated, now separated) is this:
“2007 Buffalo (N.Y.) News 26 Mar. a4 [John H.] Sununu and his wife, Nancy, have been named to the honorary post of Hampton Falls’ hog reeve, complete with a swearing-in ceremony and a badge.”
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o.k., I wasn’t being literally serious on the hogreeve question, just metaphorically so. I always liked the phrase “not fit for a hog reeve.” I also somehow felt incredibly well-educated the first time I knew that a sheriff was nothing more than the “reeve of the shire!”
And with that, the road again…
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I’m disappointed! Meanwhile, the polls are still open out here so who knows if I’ll wake up tomorrow morning in Colorado or a new federal territory. . .
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I’m glad to see that Weld held, according to what seems like pretty definitive results in the Eastern press. I guess y’all’l just have to do without Kit Carson County, wherever that is. Maybe they could be made to leave the name behind! We’re going to have to listen to more Chris Christie blather back this way, but Virginia continues to trend blue, so you take what you can get. And New York City may have elected the closest thing to a Bolshevik, or at least an interesting mayor, since Fiorello LaGuardia died, which was before my time.
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Kit Carson County should just join Oklahoma.
As for Christie: good luck taking that act on the road! Some personalities are just a little too loud for the South and the Midwest, especially for the women in those states.
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my home town has a fence viewer and a tree warden. sadly, the hogreeve was folded into the animal control officer some years ago.
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